Con considered the question before answering, "There’s a growing concern among the rural folks that get their water from wells, about the groundwater getting contaminated by all of the drilling. But I don’t know about wasting water, no."
"Well . . . pun intended," Ela smiled at her mother and then continued, "the man I'm meeting with today has all the inside info on how much water is actually being used in the drilling industry's fracking processes."
Con relished her daughter's enthusiasm with her altruistic goal to wean the world from its unsustainable ways; though she herself took a more practical view. At times like these, when her daughter exhibited those traits by lengthy dissertation, Con relaxed the extra concentration she needed to understand speech. The hearing aids she wore helped, but didn't restore her to normal hearing. Realizing that Ela needed to talk, Con went into monitor mode, only keeping up with the direction rather than the detail of the conversation.
After Ela wound down from talking about how civilization perched on thin ice, while simultaneously engaged in deep drilling, Con jumped in on a pause, "Thin ice and deep drilling is too complicated a concept for your old ma to think about while driving Unaweep Canyon. Do you know what Unaweep means, Miss Smarty Pants?"
"I think—" was all Ela got out before Con interrupted; skilled at changing the subject and keeping it changed.
"Well, just so you'll know and you won’t have to wonder it means 'canyon with two mouths' and it is the only one in the known world, so look around and quit 'fracking' worrying about saving us from ourselves. There is a very, very, small chance of that ever happening, anyway. Historically, I’m sure it would be a first for humans," Con stated, comfortable in a parenting role where she had established the right to having the last word, on any subject.
"Mom, your command of the English language 'fracking' amazes me," Ela said with a smile. "So, you talked to an old Ute about Unaweep?"
"No, I saw it on a Chamber of Commerce brochure at Denny’s, but I’m sure it’s true. Look. There is the summit sign. See? We’re in the western end of the canyon now."
"A summit in a canyon, will counterintuitive wonders never cease? How long until we get there?" Ela asked while looking at her smart phone that had no signal.
"Oh, we’ll be there before you can tear your eyes away from your addiction, Sweetie," Con answered, unaware of Ela’s connection woes.
"No cell service in the canyon, how can people survive here?" Ela asked without expecting an answer, or its personal cost if one did arrive.
Andy & Jennifer - East Texas
Once they were inside the store Andy could see that Jennifer had work to do. He browsed in the book and magazine aisle, mostly staying out of the way. He enjoyed just being in the air-conditioned coolness, and the view of Jennifer dealing with customers for the last thirty minutes gave him insight to her personality. Even though he was being careful not to stare he was nervous that Jennifer would feel his gaze sooner rather than later. Grabbing a cold drink he went to the register when she had a lull in customers. "Probably soaked up my share of AC, let me pay for this and head back to camp. Thanks again for letting me stay over."
Jennifer refused payment for the drink with a smile saying, "Consider it a bonus along with the campsite."
“I’ve got some maintenance to take care of. See you in a while,” Andy said, and then left through the back door. Cloud cover, plus being in the shade of a large tree, made the interior of the tent pleasantly dim. That, and a passing shower's rain-cooled breeze, put Andy to sleep shortly after beginning to read. A couple of hours later he awoke much refreshed, but hot. Thoughts of air conditioning and striking up a conversation with Jennifer soon had him moving once again toward the store.
Standing at the register, having paid for more food and drink, Andy had just opened his month to say "Thanks" when the lights went out. "This happened yesterday," Jennifer said. "They came back on about fifteen to twenty minutes later, though."
Andy didn’t say anything, his available mental faculties calculating the odds of getting here just before last call. As if reading his mind Jennifer gave him a hard look, "Since you seem to be aware you are in Texas, and how we settle accounts here, I’m going to trust you to behave. The front door needs to be locked, and the sign I made yesterday gets taped to the closed sign."
Andy answered, "I can do both." He stuck his hand out for the key and sign.
"Okay, let’s get this done before some Damn Yankee comes in here making trouble." Jennifer dug around under the counter, came up with the "Closed due to Power Outage" sign, found some tape in a drawer and handed them over. "No offense meant since you’re a Northerner," Jennifer offered as it dawned on her where Seattle was in relation to the Mason-Dixon line.
Andy laughed, "None taken. What else?"
"Andy, there’re a couple of stools by the back door, please go grab one and bring it inside, so you’ll have a place to sit while we wait for the lights to come on. I need to call the owner and report this."
By the time he got back with the stool Jennifer had just gotten through to the owner. Andy listened to her side of the conversation.
"Dad? . . . Yeah, hi Dad. . . . The lights went out. . . . Yeah, I got the door locked with a biker-dude in here with me. . . . Is it loaded? . . . Neck and groin in case he’s wearing a vest, but Dad, wait . . . Dad! Not that kind of biker, he’s wearing tight shorts, slippers, and drinks Gatorade. . . . Okay, I’ll call you in fifteen minutes. . . . Bye."
"Well, that certainly clears up any doubt about who is in the greatest danger here," Andy scooted the stool up to the counter and gestured to the store. "Is this the family enterprise?"
"No, just a part of it, we come from a long line of farmers and ranchers. Dad sold a guy the land to build this store; he was to pay us over time with the profits. The profits shrank when the drought grew worse and the store came back to us. I was in college taking business classes when that happened. Now I manage this place, take classes online, and do the books. Plus helping out any way possible on the farm keeps me pretty busy." Jennifer tilted her head and asked, "How is it that you can take a summer off? I’m not talking about a job or money. Did you just tell your family and friends, 'See ya in a few months?' "
"Mom and Dad are excited for me and planning to come to Key West for a visit this winter. They run their own software business, and are consumed by that, so I don’t see them often anyway. My friends are all busy with their kids, or so it seems. Since I’m the last in my circle of friends to sprout a family I doubt they’ve missed me. Fate picked me for this role, I did not seek it," Andy ended with added drama for effect.
"Those that throw their future to the whims of fate can claim no honor in good fortune, and are not absolved for the bad," Jennifer quipped, challenging his hypothesis.
"In other words, BS don’t float no boats in Texas?" he asked.
"Boats may be floating all around here soon, according to the weatherman. But, let’s stay on subject. As busy as everyone’s life is these days, how can yours be so different?" asked Jennifer, her earnest face implying she wanted a straight answer this time.
"Doing the same thing since junior high into adulthood—even if you make a good living doing it—does not offer a clear rite of passage into manhood, or womanhood. Only slaying dragons does that; this summer is my dragon."
"Andy, slay the dragon already, it’s causing a heat wave at the end of September!"
Jennifer’s cell phone rang. She looked at the caller ID first and then answered, "Hi Dad. . . .Yeah, the power’s still out here too. . . . Okay, bye." Jennifer looked up at Andy with a smile and a confirming wink, "He was just checking to see if you’re behaving. And, I did like what you had to say about rites of passage. It would be nice for girls to have a rite of passage to womanhood before childbirth."
"There's no shortage of challenges to choose from, it's timing and the choices we make that allow us to reach our goals, or not. So . . . how long until the ice cream melts?" Andy asked.
"I'm not sure, we’ve never had the power go out long enough to melt it since we’ve had the store. A few hours, I guess," Jennifer said.
"Got a generator on the farm big enough to power a cooling unit?" Andy asked.
"Maybe, I’ll call Dad." As Jennifer grabbed her cell phone Andy went to the freezer section and got a 29ºF reading from the thermometer setting on the top shelf. When Andy returned she greeted him with, "Good idea, Dad’s on the way here with a generator he says might be big enough to run some stuff. Do you know about that kind of thing?"
"An electrician I’m not, but I’ve been around computers and power supplies all my life, so I might be able to figure out some things. Where is the circuit breaker box?"
She led Andy to the back of the shop and unlocked a door by the restrooms and the back door. "This is the utility room. I think everything electrical is in here, or on the back of the building."
The main electrical feed-line into the building, and the main distribution panel confirmed this was the electrical control-room for the building. Well-labeled breaker switches greeted Andy on opening the breaker box.
"This looks pretty straight forward: first, we turn off these main breakers to isolate the building from the grid, then connect the generator and turn on the individual cooling units on a rotating basis to keep the overall load on the generator below its max rating. Anyway, that’s how I would do it."
"No matter how you dress, it sounds like you know what you’re talking about." Jennifer stopped and cocked an ear, "Guess I’ll let Dad be the judge of that, because here he comes." The sound of a diesel engine permeated the back wall of the store, Jennifer opened the back door and the noise grew louder. She propped the back door open and went out. Andy followed to meet her dad.
A spry man jumped out of a dually pickup and quickly walked up to them. "Dad, this is Andy. Andy this is my father, Tye," Jennifer introduced the men and they shook hands.
"Well Andy, Jen was right. You sure don’t look like the typical Texan biker, and thanks for suggesting the generator. I probably would of thought of it half an hour too late. Let’s see what we have to do here to get it hooked up."
Jennifer threw Andy under the bus when she piped up with, "Dad, Andy already figured out what we need to do."
That stopped Tye on his way in the door. He turned with a look on his face that Andy wasn’t sure the meaning of, looked at his daughter then at Andy, and said nothing—he just waited. He knew his daughter liked to stir the pot and claimed she inherited the trait from her mother.
Unable to field a competitive effort at waiting out either of these two, the silence stretched on until Andy decided to break it, "Sir, she asked if I knew anything and I naturally wanted to sound like I know everything. I assure you, it was a bluff on my part. I am glad to help with whatever you suggest."
Tye looked over at Jennifer, "Did you tell him about me running off the last guy trying to hang around you?"
"No Daddy, I’m saving that story for the right moment with the right guy, in order to remove all doubt," Jennifer and Tye laughed at their private joke.
"Andy is more interested in staying cool than anything else, so I think you can get him to work cheaply. Gatorade and burritos seem to motivate him adequately." Jennifer gave Andy a wink and added, "He cleaned the whole parking lot for one of each this morning."
Tye laughed and leaned in toward Andy saying quietly, "Careful, if she starts talking about painting; Tom Sawyer was her first book." Then in a louder voice, "Come on, let’s get this done, I’ve got to get this lift-gate truck back to the neighbor."
Once Tye and Andy were at the electrical panel, he asked for Andy’s suggestions. Andy explained about isolating the building from the grid and then connecting the generator.
"I agree. Let’s see to setting it up, we’ll need to unload the genny first," Tye said as they went back out into the sauna outside.
In the back of the truck sat a large, gas-powered generator, two five-gallon gas cans and some chain. "You two ready to earn your keep?" Tye asked.
"Ready and willing!" Jennifer answered for both of them. Tye grabbed a skid on one side, leaving Andy to the other side. With Jennifer between them and all three tugging they slid it toward and onto the life-gate. Tye pulled a lever, causing a hissing sound, and the gate lowered the generator to the pavement.
"Now what?" Jennifer asked and looked at Andy. Andy looked at Tye. Tye looked at Jennifer. The pecking order of this little enterprise stabilized itself a little more at each decision point.
"I was thinking about that on the way over. We could scoot the generator close enough to the building to block the door from opening wide enough for a person to sneak in, but we could still pass the electrical cord through. We can run the chain in the door and lock the generator to the building too," Tye answered.
All three of them went back to somewhat coordinated yanking and pulling, and they moved the generator closer to the door. Tye then got the rest of the stuff out of the truck while Jennifer and Andy went around to unlock the front door to get back in. Tye passed them the ends of the chain and the electrical cable through the small gap.
Clicking off the main breakers to the building, and then all the circuit breakers, only took a minute. When he had the cable connected, Andy went to the crack in the door to let Tye know they were ready for power. The sound of the generator starting up soon followed. Andy clicked on the breaker labeled "restrooms/utility room" and the lights in the back of the store came on.
"Andy, good job! No fires or sparks, yet." Jennifer came into the utility room and bumped Andy’s shoulder with hers. Her no-handed high-five he guessed; it came with a smile, so no complaints from him. She turned to go let her Dad in the front door.
Tye came into the utility room saying, "Hey Andy, thanks for helping us with this. Let’s see about getting some cooling." Discussing and experimenting, using the sound of the generator to figure the load it would handle, the two men worked it out. Using the breakers to manually cycle power to the individual cooling units insured that everything in the store would get its turn at the power supply. The building AC could be turned on only intermittently to keep the overall power load on the generator down. That process, plus keeping the generator fueled, would require someone to stay to monitor the various cooling temps and the generator’s fuel tank.
"So Andy, it occurred to me that you might like to hang out here until the weather clears, and keeping all those breaker switch combinations in order seems easy for you. Maybe you would help me with that?" Jennifer asked.
"You think you can trust me with all this food and drink?" Andy asked, and as he looked at the snack displays his stomach growled as if on cue. Andy looked back and caught Jennifer’s eye, tilting his head at the self-evident truth of his question.
Tye heard the exchange and joined his daughter in laughter. "Jen open a tab for Andy. We don’t need the SPCA nosing around here, making sure that we’re not starving the help."
"Dad! That’s for animals; maybe you meant the ACLU?"
"To tell the truth, I’m not sure which one covers bikers, it’s a gray area to me," Tye answered.
Since Andy had started this bike trip what to eat next was never far from his awareness. He joined the conversation to redirect the subject matter away from the control of bikers toward the feeding of them, "The microwave's working. Be glad to pop in enough burritos for all of us; you two work up an appetite?"
Both laughed, but declined. Andy had no problem eating alone and enjoying the badinage between father and daughter while he quickly finished off a microwave burrito.
Tye looked at Jennifer, "I thought you said he’d be cheap labor!"
Both these two are regular comedians—must run in the family—Andy thought. Wiping his mouth on a paper towel that Jennifer had put in his hand he replied, "Sir, I promise, that will hold me till supper."
Tye laughed and said, "You can drop the sir. And it better, since it's after three in the afternoon." Then h
e paused and looked at Jennifer, "I’ve got to get that truck back to the neighbor, you going to be all right here?"
"Yeah, I’ll just wait for the power to come back on and call you as soon as it does." Jennifer added, "If it’s not on by 6:00P.M. we’ll decide what to do then, I guess."
Tye said, "Just don’t burn the place down and be careful about who you let in. News of the lawlessness back east makes me nervous. I gotta go, call me."
"What’s going on out east?" Andy asked.
"When the heat wave hit the East Coast, some radical environmentalists started attacking the municipal water systems, to bring attention to climate change, or something. It’s hard to keep up with all the controversies enough to even know who is doing what, and for what reasons," Jennifer said.
"I agree. But when getting ready to leave on this trip I made a personal decision to take the summer off from more than just work. Part of doing this was to see if modern man—if I—could go forth without electronics and survive."
"Well, you’re still alive, but have you cheated? Any clandestine surfing on the net while you stayed with friends?"
"What happens between friends stays between friends is what I always say."
"Andy . . .?"
"It’s my story. Now let’s see if we can keep the frozen treats cold enough, so we aren't forced to eat all of them." Andy though for a moment and then asked, "How about we combine all the ice cream bars and popsicles in one freezer, and shut the other one down?"
"You planning on eating anything that doesn't fit?" Jennifer asked.
"I'll do my best to help out with whatever you suggest," Andy replied with a smile.
Con & Ela - Unaweep Canyon, CO
"This is all new in the last few years?" Ela asked, taking in the sights of Gateway Canyons Resort and Spa with all the southwestern adobe-style buildings, tastefully finished with earth-tone exteriors to match the rocky canyon walls surrounding them. Ela was astonished at the contrast from the dusty, lazy look of the city of Gateway before they crossed the bridge over the Delores River, compared to the freshly constructed adobe buildings on this side.
SURVIVING ABE: A Climate-Fiction Novel Page 5
